Midwest Zen Issue 4 Summer 2023 : simplebooklet.com

Cover photograph by Eric Tompkins on Unsplash. From the editor e summer season can be a time of great hustle with vacations, festivals, and the growth of plants in elds and gardens. It is also a season where one is able to pause in various moments of life, whether by oating in a pool, siing by a bonre, or taking a breath during a hike to take in an undiscovered view. In between these dierent times, we invite you to explore the art and writings in this summer issue of Midwest Zen. Within this issue you will nd returning contributors along with new ones. e articles cover a variety of subjects. Here you can read about the continuous practice that arises from the initial siing on the zafu to the daily activities of life. Another piece focuses on the use of language to show how the word usage itself can go beyond the meanings assigned to the words. ese are only a few of the varied articles along with poetry provided in this issue. We also have a new section. ere is a estion and Answer portion provided by Gail Sher. In this part of the publication, one will be able to submit questions involving Zen Buddhism. ese questions can cover dierent types, whether it is a question regarding practice, ethics, or philosophy to name just a few areas of query. In the midst of this season, we hope you enjoy reading both familiar and new voices that will follow in this summer issue of Midwest Zen. Kristin Roahrig Editor, Midwest Zen

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Midwest Zen Issue 4 | July 2023 Published 2023 by Great Wind Zendo Editor: Kristin Roahrig Published by Great Wind Zendo, Danville, Indiana 46122, U.S.A. © 2023 by Great Wind Zendo. No part may be altered or used for commercial or for-prot use without prior, wrien approval. All rights revert to the contributors upon publication. e digital version of this publication can be downloaded at no cost from our website at greatwindzendo.org/mwz. You are free (and encouraged) to share this with others. e works included and the opinions expressed herein are those of the individual authors, who are solely responsible for their contents. ey do not necessarily reect the opinions and positions of Great Wind Zendo. For more information, including submial guidelines, contact us at: Great Wind Zendo, P.O. Box 681, Danville, Indiana, 46122-0681, U.S.A., or email us at MidwestZen@greatwindzendo.org.

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Contents ESSAYS Daishin McCabe Mountains Walk 7 Ed Mushin Russell Three Marks in a Nutshell 50 Gail Sher The Pure Form of a Word's Practice 20 Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross The Practice of Haiku 28 Jinryu Wachowitz The Flower of Dharma Gives Freely 35 Neil Schmitzer-Torbert Beyond Fair and Unfair 12 Zuiko Redding The True Dragon 48 POETRY Dave Malone Awareness Eating Corn Flakes Alone Before Bed Mountains of Samsara 24 25 26 John Grey Reclaimed Why So Silent? 42 43 Kenneth Goodman Empty Glass on Picnic Table 46 Mark J.. Mitchell Practical Methods of Zen Instruction Unfinished Eyes Starting from Wang We: “Offering a Meal for the Monks of Fu-Fu” 16 17 18 Richard Holinger Storm Windows Grounded Wood 36 38 Robert Beveridge Beef Cheeks 47 Tonia Smith-Kalouria The Zen Path 40 Yuan Changming Mindful Mindset 44 Zhihua Wang Time 10

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Daishin McCabe Page 7 Mountains Walk “Mountains do not lack the qualities of mountains. Therefore, they abide in ease and always walk. You should examine in detail this quality of the mountains’ walking.” —Dogen Zenji in Mountains and Waters Sutra It’s strange to be writing about mountains in central Iowa, one of the flattest regions of the country. Formerly tall grass prairie and teeming with wildlife, Iowa’s present land is a pale reflection of what it once was. Replaced by corn and soy crops in the Spring, Summer and Fall, it lies bare in the Winter months with little covering to support preexisting flora and fauna. There is growing awareness of the need to “save the soil” through cover crops and prairie strips, and some farmers are taking this call seriously. Like many things, change is slow and requires a level of perseverance that few may be prepared to enact. The monocropping of the land doesn’t change the reality that I can drive for hours through cornfields that are as flat as a pancake. It also affirms a way of seeing the ground that, while having served humanity in terms of food production, is utilitarian. In other words, the land is not viewed as sentient and therefore (in our utilitarian oriented minds) entitles humanity to use it as we see fit. While proper stewardship of the land is a responsibility we cannot escape, I’d like to call into question the idea that land is dead or insentient. While some may argue right out of the gate that it is not inert because it grows corn and soy, I’d like to counter that by saying I find corn and soy fields largely uninspiring to look at. It’s not that they’re bad, nor are the farmers who put in a lot of hard work to cultivate the land, but my soul thirsts for diversity.

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Daishin McCabe Page 8 Where I trained in central Pennsylvania there is a very similar land ethic to Iowa, however, the terrain is quite different. There the soil is red, unlike the black soil of Iowa that has been singed by centuries of prairie fires. Perhaps the most striking distinction to the casual observer is the appearance of mountains. I could walk out the door of Mount Equity Zendo and see the mountains. Bald Eagle Mountain range was just off in the distance beyond the horizontal corn and soy fields. The level fields connected to the rising mountains in this area no doubt contributed to “Mount Equity Road” after which the Zendo was named. Bald Eagle Mountain range was not named after the bird, as I once thought, but a leader within the Lenape (better known as the Delaware) tribe, a community of indigenous people that still exists today. This tribe has three clans within it, one of which is known as the “Muncy.” In the 1800’s the Lenape were pushed west by the expansion of the United States, and we find evidence of this westward movement by place names such as “Delaware,” “Muncy” (in Pennsylvania), and Muncie (in Indiana). The Lenape are perhaps better known for their “ceding” of what is now New York city and the surrounding Islands to settlers for a minimal price, yet their distinction from other indigenous tribes is often erased by the term “Indian.” Bald Eagle Mountain range and other mountains like it comprise what is known as the Appalachian Mountains which span from Alabama all the way up to southeastern Canada. The Appalachian Mountains are considered older than the Rocky Mountains. Scientific studies of plate tectonics and sedimentation have revealed that these creatures (the mountains) were born some 480 million years ago and were once just as tall as the Rocky’s are today. Now, they are like old men and women with their hunched backs illustrating the Buddha’s teaching that no one can escape old age,

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Daishin McCabe Page 9 not even a mountain. Yet to the common observer it may seem as though the mountains have always been the way they appear today. Zen Master Dogen, in the 13th century on the mountainous Island nation of Japan, exhorted his students to observe the mountains “walking.” He was not privy to the extensions of the senses that technology has afforded modern humans. Meditation, rather, enabled him to see deeply into the nature of impermanence. Knowing that “mountains walk” with the intellect is not the same as penetrating it in the way that Dogen poignantly describes in his writing. Practice is seeing that we are those mountains walking. Dogen says: If you doubt mountains’ walking, you do not know your own walking; it is not that you do not walk, but that you do not know or understand your own walking. The monk in this image is standing on the bank of a river (or maybe a field) and is contemplating the mountain walking. This requires a deep time view. It requires that we keep alive the question, what was here before any of us was alive? Or perhaps, who was here before us? Who was here before our great grandparents? The Zen koan that invites us into a deep time view is, “What is your face before your parents were born?” Returning to central Iowa, nestled between the two mighty rivers—the Missouri on the western border and the Mississippi on the eastern side—and to the Midwest sanctioned by the Rockies on the western bank and the Appalachians on the eastern edge, I find it imperative that I invoke my imagination to see with deep time eyes, that these two mountain ranges have been playing a tug of war with each other as they rise and fall, and thanks to them our prairies, too, walk.

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Zhihua Wang Page 10 Time I You see my white hair, I see your wrinkles. After a couple of decades, when we meet by chance on the street, we lament the ruthlessness of time. Yet we are young in our own minds, because every morning we meet ourselves in our mirrors, and never see that big difference. II You were once my best friend, walked with me hand in hand, talking about seeing the outside world together. Little by little, I grew slower, you never changed your steps.

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Neil Schmitzer-Torbert Page 12 Beyond Fair and Unfair In March of 2023, I lost my little brother, Tom, to cancer. I say “little” because he was younger than me by a bit over two years. But, he was 41 years old when he was diagnosed with lung cancer, fully grown. He was a big person, and full of life. I’ll always remember his smile, his love of stories, and his strong opinions. When Tom was moving to hospice in January, our ex-stepsister reached out to me through social media to share her sympathies. She sent a touching video to share with Tom, with words of love and sharing some memories from when we all were children. As we exchanged messages about how Tom was doing, she said something that many of us in the family have felt: “It’s not fair.” This idea resonated with me. Tom was young, with a family and friends who loved him. He had a fiancée and a young child, and he was a young man himself (to my eye). In one moment, I would have told you that the entire world was in front of him and his family. In the next, we could feel the paths ahead beginning to close off and pull in. And, his journey with cancer was a hard one. Even with all of the pain management available today, his pain was intense and consistent. Looking back, I cannot think of a day when he was truly comfortable. The best days I can recall were ones where he said his pain was not too bad. Never good, just not too bad. He suffered a great deal. Once, driving back after a visit, I had a moment where I was overwhelmed. This was not fair, I thought. It was not right. It should not have been this way. It felt true to me in that moment. We care about Tom a great deal, we lost him when he was young, and he suffered a great deal. All of that is true. It should not have been this way. That part feels true. Right and wrong. Fair and unfair. These are useful ideas, I think. The kind of ideas that matter a great deal in our everyday lives. But, fair and unfair are not part of the world. They are ideas that we put on the world, on to our experience. When we look carefully around us, we cannot find them in our direct experience. We find fair and unfair when we try to make sense of the actions of other people, in how we treat one another. Like so many other concepts, fair and unfair help us to make sense of the world and of our lives.

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Neil Schmitzer-Torbert Page 13 When we lose someone so young, and in such a painful way, it is normal to reach for someone, or something, to blame. This can be a helpful instinct, as it can help us recognize and confront injustice. However, even though we might have thought of Tom’s cancer as our enemy, when we looked closely there was no villain to be found. What is cancer, really, but just us? When we look at cancer, we find a mutiny, our own cells multiplying out of control. In a sense, our body may have betrayed us, but cancer, in itself, is mindless, and sits beyond fair and unfair. Much like a flood or a wildfire. Even so, we often still hate the wildfire, as we hate cancer. We feel drawn to set our rage against a world in which our very lives can be consumed. That kind of anger, or resistance, offers a kind of alchemy, transmuting our grief and fear into anger. Our rage can be our armor, to protect ourselves a bit from our own pain. Sometimes, that kind of hate might even be useful, helping us organize our response, as we work to find the best path through the fire. Even if our anger has some utility, to help us mobilize our response, this will only help us so far. In the end, there was no cure for Tom. There was no way for him to be healed, to live out the rest of his life with his wife, to see his son grow into a man, to live his own life fully. As that became more and more clear to us, fair and unfair were no longer useful, and we had to set them aside. That is not to say that we should discard fair and unfair entirely. Fair and unfair are ideas, constructions of our minds, but not in the sense that they are fictions. Not in the sense that seeing through fair and unfair frees us to be callous, or selfish. Not in that way at all. Fair and unfair are just ideas, but ones which matter precisely in the actions we take that affect other people. They matter in how we treat one another. They are a profound treasure for people who aspire to live together in peace. And, it is also true that if we hold on to our ideas of fair and unfair too rigidly, we can find ourselves rejecting what is in front of us. It should not be this way, I think, that Tom is heading to hospice. It is this way. It should not be this way, I think, that he suffers so. It is this way.

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Neil Schmitzer-Torbert Page 14 In those last days, I was reminded of a quote from Rumi, which I first encountered at a Zen center years ago: “Beyond our ideas of right and wrong, there is a field. I’ll meet you there…” I thought that I had an idea of what Rumi meant, what the Zen center had meant when they adopted that quote. Perhaps I did, but what I discovered during Tom’s illness was that the depth of my understanding was shallow. To be able to be there, to be present with Tom and our family through this all, I had to give up my ideas of right and wrong. I had to give them up for him, because those ideas became a way of rejecting what was actually happening in that moment, turning away from the reality of his suffering. And it felt wrong to me, that I was abandoning him because I could not accept that nothing could be changed. I felt that I had to give up my ideas of fair and unfair so that I could see things through to the end. And also, I do believe in fair and unfair. I hope that we will always work towards fairness, towards justice. And, that we can carry out that work without being consumed. What we need, most of the time, is to make a dedicated, intentional effort, but one which is skillful, almost delicate. I also hope that we can use our ideas of fair and unfair with care, and be ready to step beyond them when the moment calls for it, to truly meet one another in that field beyond our ideas.

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Mark J. Mitchell Page 16 Practical Methods of Zen Instruction In the actual living of life there is no logic, for life is superior to logic. —D.T. Suzuki Have monks ride in his backpack disguised as Jesuits. Force her computer to force her back into rigid alignment. Set a meeting just far enough in the future so it looms like a fork in an old tree. From time to Time—Not in time but of time— Send buses disguised as monks to whisper koans into their deaf ears.

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Mark J. Mitchell Page 17 Unfinished Eyes Only after the eyes are painted does one get his fee. —The Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 lines. Chap.VII, vs. 2 The eyes are complete. The artist gets paid a coin to eat, for skill, for his used hours. Brushes get cleaned, packed, colors put away. Thinking of maps and roads, the artist stays— because this picture lives now. It’s powered by completed eyes. An artist must pay to leave that face behind. Her look still weighs, strikes fire between shoulders. It could bore through clean brushes. Colors find a way to run down scarred fingers. They start to play their own games of masks. Disguised as flowers, they complete her eyes. There’s no one to pay— no charge. Just a likeness that never says its own name. Not his now, it becomes ours— Those brushed, packed, unclean colors. Look away— to streets, noise, commerce. He re-enters day from his mind’s closed box. Leftover paint pours shaping complete eyes. The art has now paid brushes. He cleans colors. Puts them away.

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Mark J. Mitchell Page 18 Starting From Wang We: “Offering a Meal for the Monks of Fu-Fu” You choose the flavors first as if they bore the weight of truth. But they don’t—sweet, salty, bitter, bright— There is nothing unusual about the flavors. Then you sought some market and chose ingredients— This one for color, another for taste. Your fingers were alive with aromas by the time you found yourself in the kitchen. Then: Each morsel washed, sliced, arranged on a hot surface. Plates warm gently in your oven. The table, though never neat, is laid with care. A quick dance of knives and spatulas to the music of water splashing and the meal is set out for the guests. Who were never invited. Who will never arrive.

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Gail Sher Page 20 The Pure Form of a Word's Practice To Mañjuśri bodhisattva, protector of poetry and words. The other day I realized that I have been a disciple of Mañjuśri bodhisattva* without knowing it. He does what I have been trying to do for most of my life. Mañjuśri, Taigen Dan Leighton explains, “works to reveal our enslavement by language and to liberate language and use it to express the deeper realities.” “In his inquiries and assertions, Mañjuśri often elucidates the inner meaning of language, using the negations of the rhetorical style of emptiness teaching to break down reified patterns of thought and language that reinforce ignorance and block insight. Much of his discourse in the sutras involves unpacking the forms of linguistic delusion. Mañjuśri liberates language by showing how it can be used to express nondual understanding without being caught by its confusions…In the penetrating, investigative spirit of Mañjuśri, the later Zen masters used language in unusual, stimulating ways to elicit awakening, uttering living words and exposing dead words.” (Leighton, 115.) In his wake I have spent much of my efforts as a poet trying to liberate language, to awaken living words and expunge dead words, but I have used a different tactic. First I try to relieve the word of its heavy burden of carrying meaning. The word by itself seemed so beautiful to my young-poet's eyes. By grasping meaning and "something to understand," we fail to notice the unadorned word's gorgeousness. There are so many things—color, form, weight, frission, allure, tension, light, shadow, a kind of searching-energy and radiance, for starters. These amazing qualities of the meaning—trodden word occupied me for forty years. Next, I try to make sure that all of my words are saturated. By this I mean that each word, one by one, completes every single task available to it to complete, so that it is replete with fullness-of-

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Gail Sher Page 21 completed-tasks. It "just sits," empty of meaning, simply being, doing zazen on the page. (As) on things which (headpiece) touches the Moslem In who claim to hold (to) be form (dearest) Or even some grabbing to brace (to) be sectional protecting jacket Saw (too) to cling here chessmen ((As) on things which (headpiece) touches the Moslem, Sher 36) Later I decided to put a dash of meaning back. Meaning is so magnetic that this teeny bit, almost being there, encourages the reader to think they will "understand." So they read till there is a space (and I make sure there are plenty) and if their mind is silent they might fall out of that space into something beyond language altogether. This might happen numerous times in the course of reading one poem.

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Gail Sher Page 22 A gull circles a wedge of water, marking the water with her eye. The memory of her skin is limitless, like the memory of her cry, before a kill or later for the sake of others. Wind, too, gains qualities by its forcefulness with things, its hand, say (a piece of sun cut off). A crack in light, like a painting of light. The palette of wind is gold, she mutters, the boundary of a man playing chess in light being the dead person. (The Tethering of Mind To Its Five Permanent Qualities, Sher, 180.) There is also another coinciding trajectory called "Pure Form of Practice." Twice I entered eleven-year periods of spiritual practice whose purpose the teacher stated was to keep its form pure. Twice I left in favor of Poetry as my Way. Neither time did I feel that I was being false to the practice. Why? Because I took the Mind of the practice (its inner wisdom) with me. Being loyal to Mind, in the end, made changing the outer shape irrelevant. Another way to say this is that in following my own karmic path I actually had become, as I initially desired, a Zen practitioner. Secretly I deign to think (wish and hope) that all my words are practicing Zen. So what is "Pure Form?" Pure Form for an object is unembellished, stripped, radiant light reflecting the object's Buddha-nature. A word burdened with meaning is like a moon, clouded. Its light will be there but obscured. Far from being awakened, such words are as if dead. I try to rake my words of deadness, just as one might rake one's lawn of fallen leaves. Now I am back Having spent forty years Releasing words from their minds Their bodies are so happy And the music from their bodies rings.

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Gail Sher Page 23 Poet, you can go, they say, back to the place where 'I am just here.' Goodbye! _________________ *Mañjuśri is one of the most prominent bodhisattvas in all of the Mahayana sutras and is sometimes considered to be based on a historical person associated with Śākyamuni Buddha.  Sher, Gail. Gail Sher Poetry & Poetics. Night Crane Press, 2020. Leighton, Taigen Dan. Faces of Compassion: Classic Bodhisattva Archetypes and Their Modern Expression—An Introduction to Mahayana Buddhism. Somerville, Md.: Wisdom Publications, 2012.

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Dave Malone Page 26 Mountains of Samsara In the dream, I’m going back to Albuquerque, where no one’s from. My destination? The Mexican restaurant with the green chiles to die for, where everything is five bucks a plate. In the night, the bus station stings yellow, and a line of Amish decorate the side of the bus like an ad. A pair of mongrels piss on the front tires and won’t leave. A woman in blue tries to shoo the dogs with her bonnet. I have forgotten why I’m here except that there is a ticket in my hand to a place I don’t know. As soon as we board, we arrive. And I’m awake.

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Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross Page 28 The Practice of Haiku The poems interspersed below were composed by an assortment of Zen practitioners during seasonal haiku walks convened for the Ancient Dragon Zen Gate Soto Zen sangha in Chicago. We walk together in relative silence in parks, cemeteries, beaches and neighborhoods and share our poems afterwards without attribution. A few are shared here with permission. Snow Goose migrating drops down in Chicago for a little culture My haiku practice began with the onset of the pandemic. To tell the truth, I was surprised to discover this deeply rewarding practice. Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry that most Americans are passingly familiar with. Few grasp its full power. I am working toward that understanding. In retrospect, this plunge into the spiritual practice of haiku seems inevitable. As a long time Zen practitioner, a retired conservation professional and a life-long lover of words I ask myself, “What took me so long to find this delightful path?” As many people did during these recent years of isolation and lifestyle disruption, I was pushed to reexamine and reconsider how I spend my precious time. Retired and living alone, when Covid hit I was not struggling with work responsibilities or managing children as many were, but there were other challenges. Goldeneye diving Sleek black and white river drake Aren’t you freezing? Literally days before the pandemic was declared, I made the decision to move my household after 25 years of stability, knowing it would be a huge disturbance. Of course Covid made it far worse. I felt unmoored and afraid and pretty much on my own. We were all so isolated. Familiar comforts and responsibilities vanished. The Zen

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Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross Page 29 temple where I serve as one of the priests closed its doors. No Zendo and no sesshin. No swimming pool or health club. No tai chi classes. No choirs—singing was declared particularly dangerous. That hurt. No way to go to the movies. I had moved away from the beautiful garden I had created. My planned travel was indefinitely postponed. It felt like starting from scratch, reinventing an entire life. In some ways, I confess, it was exhilarating. Every day presented fresh choices with no one to answer to. For a time I stopped meditating, something I had done daily for over two decades. I gained ten pounds, even though I walked every day. I became tidy—or at least tidier than I had ever been before. Was that about wanting control? So many robins Focused on gathering Invisible food By serendipity I discovered that Chicago’s Poetry Foundation online classes are free and became an enthusiastic, though not very good, poet. Every week we studied a new form, reading and writing tankas and zuihitsus, pantoums, and ekphrastic poems. I doubt I will ever write a successful sonnet. Striding through the park Getting in those thousand steps Missing the Fall day Then I learned about a three day online Haiku workshop hosted by the Upaya Institute in Santa Fe. The four teachers were superstars. Joan Halifax, the founder of Upaya, convened the sessions. Writing teacher Natalie Goldberg, discussed her new book about Haiku, Three Simple Lines and led writing exercises. Kaz Tanahashi, who I had briefly studied with at a painting workshop years before at Ancient Dragon, provided Japanese insight. The fourth teacher was Clark Strand, a luminary in the haiku world. His legendary book about haiku, published in 1997 is called Seeds from a Birch Tree. It’s out of print, but I found it at the Chicago Public library and devoured it.

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Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross Page 30 Buckeye, Black Walnut, Acorn, Shagbark hickory Woodland smorgasbord The fee for the workshop was generously described as “whatever you would like to donate.” So I took the plunge and signed up—along with about a thousand other people. This practice seemed to connect three of the most important things in my life—nature, Zen practice and art. At the end of the three days I rashly made a commitment to myself to write haiku every day for half an hour for a year to see what might happen. Known only to Nature Vermillion yellow orange Color with no name I can’t stress enough how little I knew about haiku going into this workshop. I only knew that the basic form is three lines: 1st 5 syllables 2nd 7 syllables 3rd 5 syllables. And that the subject matter is mostly nature. It turns out this is actually all you need to know in order to begin. Of course, that’s like saying zazen is just sitting—just shut up and sit down and that’s all you need to know. I don’t disagree, but of course there is a lot more to discuss. According to Clark Strand, haiku is the one poetic form in all of literature that concerns itself primarily with nature and makes nature a spiritual path. Upon hearing this I was hooked. I have spent most of my professional and personal life in studying nature. Nature is inextricable from my spiritual path. As if from nowhere Three Green herons manifest Bare tree comes alive It is said that beginning poets write excellent haiku for a short time when they first start. Then they write terrible and mediocre haiku

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Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross Page 31 for a long time. Eventually if they persist, they master the form and write good haiku again. “Beginner’s mind” is a familiar concept to Soto Zen practitioners who know the teachings of Shunryu Suzuki, founder of the San Francisco Zen Center and author of the book Beginner’s Mind. An appealing aspect of haiku discussed in Strand’s book is that “Unlike longer poems a haiku can be grasped all at once.” Part of my previous resistance to reading poetry, I think, was the notion that poems are difficult to understand. Haiku hits you in the face. That is not the whole story though. Much is not grasped immediately. Reading these short poems over and over may result in a deeper experience. White-tailed deer stretches. Its neck and long tongue upward To reach tender tips My primary interest was not in reading ancient Japanese haiku written by Basho and Issa and Shiki, although I find them beautiful. I was mostly interested in what would happen if I tried to write haiku. I wanted to know if it could help me to see more clearly or feel more deeply or seek more sincerely. I enjoy reading haiku, but the practice I am talking about is the practice of writing these poems. In the Upaya workshop we were given what are called “season words” and told to write as many haiku as possible without judgment. (Judgment comes later.) Season words, unsurprisingly, are words that are connected to a particular season like “icicle” for winter or “acorn” for fall. There are thousands of season words in Japanese, many untranslatable. The workshop was held in mid February so we were given “icicle” as a winter season word and “inchworm” for spring. Here is one I wrote: Returning birdsong Sugar Maple icicle dripping so sweetly

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Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross Page 32 This arose from an experience at a bird walk on a warmish February day. We were looking for early migrants like Red-winged Blackbirds and listening for their songs. Standing on the trail we noticed a small icicle dripping from a tree branch. This struck us as odd because it had not rained and everything else was dry. Then we realized that it was a sugar maple tree that had oozed sap which had frozen into an icicle that was now melting. Insistent Robin Singing and hoping for love I’m here. Where are you? Where does haiku come from? Imagination based in direct experience. The poet’s mind is an important component because a haiku is not just description. Writing haiku is a mystery like all creative acts. The form: 5 7 5 syllables, and the subject: nature, are what haiku is about, but the magic is in the third element which is the insight for which you have to be creative. Expressive. That is the fun part for the poet. That is the work for the poet. The imagery of the poem shows the readers something, and then the turn of thought tells them what you want to say about it. Haiku is description plus insight in 17 syllables. Here is another example of mine: Icy waters thaw Turtles crowd on floating log Sunshine equals hope This is very literal—the turtles are turtles; they are not a metaphor. The sunshine IS the hope quite literally. The warmth wakes the turtles up. I do not claim that these are excellent haiku. I am a haiku student. Attention Blue jays! Giant tree with heavy seeds Needs acorn transport

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Gyoshin Laurel M. Ross Page 33 There is another aspect of haiku that is similar to Zen practice. The Three Treasures in Buddhism, as we know, are Buddha, Dharma and Sangha—Sangha being the community of practitioners. We practice meditation together in community. Haiku practice is also often done in community. Small groups of practitioners, usually 6 to 20 people, meet regularly to write and to read each other’s work. There are thousands of haiku groups all over the world, though of course the pandemic affected their ability to meet in person. I joined some Facebook haiku groups. These are very large and suffer from being on a screen rather than in person, but even with these drawbacks there is value in practicing with a community. Reading and responding to haiku by many people written on the same season word is mind-stretching. Receiving responses to the poems I have posted has been instructive and, dare I say, enlightening. It has been said that haiku is a joint undertaking between the poet and the reader. April morning chill Warmed by birdsong symphony Love is in the air This delight in haiku led me to offer our Ancient Dragon Zen Gate sangha the opportunity to explore this practice together in Chicago’s natural areas. In 2021 and 2022 we did monthly walks together walking for an hour and a half in relative silence, enjoying whatever Mother Nature had to offer that morning. In 2023 we continue with quarterly haiku walks each season. We carry notebooks, sketch pads and cameras to make notes. Participants are invited to write haiku afterwards and share them if they wish. I send out everyone’s poems without attribution. We are learning together. I see with my ears Bound to Nature in silence The winds rush words forth

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Jinryu Wachowitz Page 35 The Flower of Dharma Gives Freely The flower freely gives its fragrance, beauty and pollen. The bee gives its lifetime and energy, taking only as much as it needs for its own existence and giving the rest to its swarm. In doing so, it supports other bees that have other tasks. Neither flower nor bee has a concept of generosity. They arise from the whole universe and contribute to the whole of life. Without soil, sun and rain, the flower cannot thrive; without the bee it cannot overcome time across generations. Without the flower, the bee cannot live. Nothing but life, coming out of life, sustaining and contributing to life. How difficult this seems to be sometimes for us human beings. The Dharma also flows freely, and yet this is only possible through the contribution of every being and every particle in the universe. Nothing, no individual, no community, no Zen center can arise from itself and continue to flow through the stream of life. How obvious this is, and yet we must always stop and sit in zazen to understand this in a way that goes deeper than all rational thought. Or upon encountering the beautiful kinship of flowers and bees.

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Richard Holinger Page 36 Storm Windows May. Summer is no longer A thing that might be. We have tasted it again and again, And still we can’t take it in— The storms remain on windows While screens stand listless Where they’ve been since May, Piled in the shed, dusty as last Fall’s leaves. These days make us Lazier, not more wary of things To come; smoother transitions of day To night relaxes intentions, a good Masseur who softens the cramp of spring. Sprinkled in sweat, I watch the western Sun ignite a field of seeded globes, White wicks of threaded thrum Lighting the dusk of insect avenues. I spy on summer as a tip-toed boy Might peek above the edge of a sill For an encouraging sign or scent Of what will be his evening meal.

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Richard Holinger Page 38 Grounded Wood The blue rusted wheelbarrow, single tire half deflated, stands at ease in a field half mowed. Circling it, I stoop to pick up storm-punched wood, scraggly, knot-knuckled fingers stretching up as if from earthen tombs, good only to pitch into woods; or thick kindling limbs, gnarled, green with moss, some mushroomed, their promise to hold laid logs apart, to let a started fire breathe. These downed boughs once had it good, before their seasonal vestments disappeared and hung instead half detached, bare as a frozen breath, brittle as a winter’s walk. Decades, sometimes centuries, before, they broke upwards, tidal waves of xylem and phloem washing through, pushing toward a living end in leaves, blossoms, fruit, pine needles, fir.

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Tonia Smith-Kalouria Page 40 The Zen Path On park’s pathway, gritty, dirty, flailing, failing, not so pretty, on that molten, busy dirt-way, lay a dying slug and bee. On said pathway, gritty, dirty, walking, jogging, oh so pretty, on her route, that busy work-day, suddenly — “Soo” takes a knee … . Soo bends and kneels. The gentle lass then moves the duo to safe grass: A cool and green secluded “cave” —Away from foot-falls’ bloody grave.

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Yuan Changming Page 44 Mindful Mindset 1/ Here: Into the Reality You see, here’s the leaf dyed with the full Spectrum of autumn; here’s the dewdrop Containing all the dreams made on the Darkest corner of last night; here’s the Light pole in the forest where gods land From another higher world; here’s the swirl You can dance with to release all your Stresses against the Virus. Here you are in Deed as in need embracing the most Mindful moment, when you can readily Measure your feel with each breath, but do Not think about time, which is nothing but A pure human invention. Just point every Synapse of yours to this locale. Here is now 2/ Now: The Art of Living With my third eye, I gaze into The present moment, & there I find it Full of pixels, each of which is Unfurling slowly like a koru into A whole new brave world that I Can spend days, even months watching As if from A magic kaleidoscope

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Robert Beveridge Page 47 Beef Cheeks on the side of the old barn up on the hill across the highway from the truck stop is a hand-painted billboard that says only FOOD. A donkey crops grass on a terrace, maybe six feet below the sign, does not seem to notice the traffic below him. It looks long-abandoned but perhaps inside that barn are long tables that creak with the weight of endless plenty that whisper to a creature too oblivious to notice.

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Zuiko Redding Page 48 The True Dragon In the final paragraph of Fukanzazengi Dōgen tells us not to be afraid of the true dragon. The true dragon is the Buddha’s practice of being awake. It’s our zazen and the mind of zazen that we take into daily life. We often read a bit and practice a bit with something—for instance, music or a foreign language—and think we really know something. If we keep going, though, we come face-to-face with the depth and complexity of it—the true dragon. We are a bit disconcerted. We might just stop. Or we might take a deep breath and continue down the path. When we first connect with the dharma, we do a lot of reading and thinking, and maybe a little sitting. We think we’ve really gotten it, that we’ve penetrated to the core, but we’re only hanging around the gate, looking in, thinking we know what’s in there. We haven’t stepped inside and begun to deal with the reality of practice. We haven’t settled in for the long haul. And it’s a long haul. A tree takes time to mature and so do we. Just as a tree encounters dry and wet years, so do we in our practice, and, like the tree, we have to

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Zuiko Redding Page 49 weather them. We come face-to-face with the reality that realization and practice are the same, and that we do it our whole lives. We meet the true dragon. We step inside the gate to sit with a straight posture and solid base, thinking non-thinking. We let go of the baggage we carry and we’re just this person in this reality. We drop off body and mind and encounter the reality in front of us with frankness and openness. We become the dragon, at home in its world. This dragon straightens its legs, gets up, fluffs up its zafu, and goes out into the world. It’s a thoughtful, grounded creature, constantly letting go of judgments and ideas and seeing what actually is. This is the life of dharma. It doesn’t take any special intelligence or talent. We just do it. We devote our energy to the way that points directly to reality, constantly in conversation with it. Dragons are guardians of the dharma, chasing away threats with their fierce countenances. We often see Buddhist altars in Japan decorated with brocades picturing dragons ferociously twining around pillars or marching across the rafters. They’re there not to scare us, but to welcome us, their fellow dragons. We protect dharma by devoting our energy to the way that points toward reality. We protect dharma by being and doing dharma, because there is no dharma waiting for us to pick it up and make it ours. Dharma is the dharma we do. It’s our letting go of ideas and agendas and having a forthright and open conversation with reality. At that time we are the dragons protecting the dharma, the buddhas and ancestors expressing dharma in the universe, the dharma going forward. And we are just this person, right here, doing our best.  You can find Fukanzazengi here—https://www.sotozen.com/eng/practice/zazen/advice/fukanzanzeng.html Image: Wikimedia Commons. “File: Dragon and Wave, Tiger among Bamboo, by Kanō Tan'yū, Japanese Edo period - Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art - DSC09109.JPG.” https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dragon_and_Wave,_Tiger_among_Bamboo,_by_Kan%C5%8D_Tan%27y%C5%AB,_Japanese_Edo_period_-_Nelson-Atkins_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC09109.JPG

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Ed Mushin Russell Page 50 Three Marks in a Nutshell When the Buddha gave up his long search, sat under a tree and eventually saw Venus rise in the east, he had a realization. What was that realization? He called it the three marks of existence. They are impermanence, non-self and suffering and they have something in common. They each are expressions of the ungraspable nature of what we call reality. I'll say a few words about this fundamental teaching of his but, remember that the Buddha had no way of knowing what Venus was and yet he saw it clearly and the experience changed his life. What could be more obvious than impermanence? Everything that arises passes away. It also means that nothing remains the same. From moment to moment, ongoing change is the foundation of all that exists. The Buddha realized this and saw that much of mankind’s distress is due to our ignorance of, and resistance to, the fact that nothing can be grasped or held on to. He didn't discover a new theory. His awakening was the embodiment of this fundamental truth. As Dogen said, "Impermanence is itself Buddha Nature.” The Buddha's realization and teaching begins with impermanence and ongoing change. Some people will never hear this teaching. Some will hear it and yet still cling to self-centeredness. And there are those who hear this teaching and, in recognizing its truth, strive to appreciate and let go of the attachments that cause suffering for themselves and others. We are fortunate to have the opportunity and ability, through our simple and sincere effort, to realize now what the Buddha realized so many years ago. In looking up, we too can see the morning star exactly as the Buddha saw it. It's there, we just need to look. One of the three marks of existence is non-self. This doesn't mean we don't function as individuals. Our functioning requires a sense of self. It does mean that we don't exist as separate, fixed selves. Nothing exists as a separate, fixed entity. If we look for the self, it's nowhere to be found. Our sense of self turns out to be just another experience. And, like all experience, it's a process of constant change and dynamic flow. It's a product of what we call dependent arising. In realizing non-self, we become free to be who we are. It's the Buddha Nature that pervades everywhere.

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Ed Mushin Russell Page 51 When we realize the fundamental truth of no fixed, separate self and see that all beings and all things arise and pass within an interdependent and constantly changing universe, upon what, then, can we hang our regrets? Where can we lay our blame? Where is the solid foundation where we can stand our ground and make our demands on this life? Where, even, is the I that insists on such things? From our practice of being present and open to this moment as it is, we can realize what the Buddha realized. That we and the whole universe are not two and that The Awakened Way is always realized right here right now. In looking at the three marks of existence we now come to suffering. The word used is dukkha which derives from ancient Aryan and refers to a poorly fitting wheel axle. A wheel out of alignment results in a bumpy ride. We can't always avoid the ruts and potholes of life. We grow old, we get sick and we die. We can't hold on to what we desire and sometimes receive what we don't want. Through our practice effort we re-align the wheel of our perception and, no matter how rough the road gets, our journey on the path of our life can continue unhindered and we are free to appreciate and enjoy the wondrous scenery. Another way to look at dukkha is to see it as the stress caused by dissatisfaction with our life. In our practice, it's helpful to become aware of the body/mind experience of this stress and to see the causal relation between it and our dissatisfaction. We don't get what we want or we get what we don't want. When we say, "Life as it is, the only teacher," do we see the profound truth in this statement? People are sometimes disappointed to learn that practice isn't going to fix their life. It does, however, teach us how to fully experience and live our life and to be satisfied in the midst of not being satisfied. In considering the three marks of existence, it is important to remember that this is not some philosophical theory. An intellectual understanding of this teaching isn't necessary. Through our zazen and daily practice effort we experience directly the fundamental truth of impermanence, non-self and the dissatisfaction that results from our attempt to grasp the ungraspable and cling to what is impermanent. What we realize is the joyous freedom that always was, and is, our true nature.

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Gail Sher Page 53 Questions on Practice 1. Why do we practice Zen when we already have Buddha nature? The Buddha nature which you think you already have within yourself is not Buddha nature. When you become yourself, or when you forget all about yourself and say 'Yes!' that is Buddha nature. “Why do we practice Zen when we already have Buddha nature?” was Dōgen Zenji's primary question. After failing to get an answer from teachers in Japan, he searched all over China for a Zen master who could answer it. At the very end when he was about to leave, he met the new abbot at a monastery he had already visited, and this abbot, Rujing, told him that we don't sit to “get” enlightenment, we sit to express the enlightenment we already have. Just as we immediately become a thief when we steal something, when we sit following Buddha's example our zazen is itself Buddha. 2. Do we already have goodness inside us? “I hear that it is because we have goodness already in us that we can afford to be good but inside me I'm not sure that I AM good. I see my jealousy, my incapacity, my gaining ideas. It’s probably there but I don't know how to get in touch with it.” You already are in touch with it. Just the SEEING of jealousy, incapacity and gaining ideas is an indicator that you are working hard with your karmic consciousness. Part of the problem is the word “good.” There is no such thing except in relation to something else. In Buddhism it is said that just seeing and following what our bodies and minds are up to, without judgment, is practice itself. To me it seems like you should just “keep on keeping on,” without any idea of improving yourself or becoming a “good” person. This kind of practice has the flavor of the Way. There's nothing more worthy of you. 3. What is the “wish to save all beings”…? …that I hear about as part of the bodhisattva precepts ceremony? How can I do THAT? It seems preposterous.

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Gail Sher Page 54 Two things: 1) bodhisattvas are not about results; they are about practice. You take the vow as an orientation for your practice and make sure, minute by minute, that you do your absolute best. 2) Because all beings are interconnected and co-arise dependently with each other, YOU are “all beings.” Don't forget. It's a critical point. Worth repeating. It is significant that we take a vow to do the impossible. Thereupon we are always lacking in the accomplishment that we vowed to make. We regret and repent our failure. All the while we keep trying and re-trying to do our very best. This is practice itself so you are already on to it. It's good that you are challenging everything. “Being picked by the Precepts” (as some say) is a big deal. Being ready to realize that you have been is also a big deal. 4. What is nonthinking? “When I sit my mind is racing. I don't think I know what "nonthinking" is. That's why I feel the whole Zen venture is hopeless.” Practice noticing it and naming it in the moment. “Discursive thought. Discursive thought. Discursive thought.” Keep returning to this conscious naming. Pay attention to the gaps even if they're brief. They are the non-reference points called “enlightenment.” 5. Explain “the past and future lives of all beings.” “I've read that the Dalai Lama considers the notion of the past and future lives of all beings an important aspect of being a bodhisattva. Could you comment on this controversial idea?” I'm a fan of the Dalai Lama and I know that he teaches the Buddha's explanation of cause and effect which states that no thing arises without cause, that there is no uncaused cause, and no cause that loses its effect. So consciousness is always preceded by another consciousness, and always gives rise to further consciousness. The idea that we live many lives before and many after this present one, the quality of which is affected by our own conduct and motivation, provides the context for appreciating the great rarity and value of life as a free and fortunate human being who alone has the ability to attain enlightenment. Moreover, understanding that all beings have already lived countless lives allows us to accept our interdependence

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Gail Sher Page 55 and appreciate that at some time every being has been kind to us in some way. There is no need to buy into this unless it helps your practice. You can just listen and let it go. 6. What is “The Perfection of Generosity?” “‘The perfections of the Bodhisattva do not support me—it is I who support them,’ says Shantideva, the great seventh-century Buddhist poet. I don't really understand what this means.” Yamada Koun Roshi (Aitken Roshi's teacher) often said, “I wish to become like a great tree, shading all beings.” In other words, “I so want to give of myself entirely for the benefit of others that I wish to just stand day and night and give my shade to all passers-by.” Another of our ancestors wished to become a water buffalo selflessly (and constantly) serving people in their toils. By virtue of their generosity both of these beings support (uphold) the “Perfection” of Generosity, the first and foremost of the six transcendent behaviors of a bodhisattva. By virtue of their “enlightened” effort, the Perfection stays alive. Otherwise it is just words. 7. “By a single act of relinquishment, everything is relinquished.” What does this mean? It's an ultimate truth and means because everything is interconnected and interdependent, each behavior of ours is not really ours. It belongs to and expresses all beings. That's why Śākyamuni Buddha said upon awakening, that he awakened along with the great earth and all beings. It goes both ways. We truly are united, more intricately than most of us can imagine. That said, when one person relinquishes something (gives something up like a habit, a prized possession, an ungenerous or angry thought) because of our interconnection, relinquishment is present everywhere. Because it's an ultimate truth our mind can't actually grasp this, but one can have a feeling that it is so nonetheless. I do. 8. Frivolity and happiness “The idea of ‘binding one's frivolity’ which is usually allowed so much room—does this mean we can never really have a good time?” Actually, it means just the opposite. Our normal idea about frivolity has some relationship to a heightened state, be it intoxicated by alcohol or drugs, by physical speed, by beauty, by excitement (or

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Gail Sher Page 56 whatever) outside the ordinary pattern of our daily life. The sila paramita brings us back to our basic life, fully present with our everyday activities. It's a special mix that when it happens, you will immediately recognize as proper + correct + lightness + serving others. The normal mode of frivolity is an add-on, like enjoyment in a kind of shell. When you enjoy from your basic self, there is a quieter but deeply resonant feeling that takes up your whole body-mind and truly satisfies. 9. Dealing with “discursive thoughts” “I keep hearing that our discursive thoughts separate us from ourselves and prevent us from knowing who we are. Can you say more about how this works? I sort of like my thoughts and don't see how they get in the way of who I am.” Freedom means being free from being enslaved by our mind, from unnecessary preoccupations and unnecessary preconceptions. This state is said to be the basis of all virtues. (Virtue means healthiness and wholesomeness.) It means to constructively organize your life as creatively and simply as possible so as to be present and fully engaged with what is there. Discursive thinking is like a separate world. Like a distraction, it lifts you out of being present. But it's from the groundedness of presence that we begin to attain jnana or wisdom, which is the essence of the practice and the source of attaining enlightenment. You can't think your way into enlightenment. You have to shed your way back and back and back to your home base. 10. Patience can mean “wait and see what happens.” When you see yourself indulge in anger there is a tendency to criticize yourself. Patience means you wait a minute; you wait and see what happens. It means not coming to conclusions too quickly. “But I don't need to wait a minute. I already know what is going to happen. My anger will not go away. If anything it will grow with time as I feel more and more justified and think less and less of the person for whom I harbor anger. It's like a righteous thing.” I'm thinking that this means that you've never actually waited a minute. Consciousness is everything. Waiting a minute means allowing consciousness to enter the picture. And then you wait a few more minutes and even more consciousness enters the picture. Now

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Gail Sher Page 57 you have several minutes of consciousness and if you allow yourself not to come to a quick conclusion and just go on with your life, the next day you really might have at least a glimmer of yourself being like the ocean—whatever happens you cannot be perturbed. You remain the same all the time, which means you keep your inherent equanimity. It doesn't mean that you don't care.  If you have a question you would like Gail to answer, write or send an email to Questions_On_Practice@greatwindzendo.org. There is a good chance she will be able to answer it specifically, depending on volume. Tapping into one question and one answer takes us back to the field of One Practice. You will find other Q&As here: https://gailsherdharmatalks.com/beginning-practice/

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Page 58 Biographies Daishin McCabe teaches at Zen Fields, Iowa, and is the interim Head Priest at Nebraska Zen Center. He had fifteen years of monastic residence at Mount Equity Zendo in central Pennsylvania, is also a 500 RYT yoga teacher, and teaches World Religions at Des Moines Area Community College. Dave Malone received a graduate degree from Indiana State (when he first became interested in Zen) and now lives in the Missouri Ozarks. His poems have also appeared in Midwest Review and Plainsongs. Ed Mushin Russell is resident teacher at the Prairie Zen Center. He served as Elihu Genmyo Smith's attendant, completed koan study and became Genmyo's first Dharma heir in 2015. Eric Tompkins is a photographer and filmmaker in St. Augustine, Florida. Eric has a passion for creating beautiful photos and artwork. His work can be seen at unsplash.com/@erictompkins. Gail Sher received lay ordination from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi in 1970. She is a poet, writer, teacher and psychotherapist in the San Francisco Bay area. Her talks on Zen practice are at gailsherdharmatalks.com. Gyoshin Laurel Ross has practiced Zazen since 1999 and was ordained in 2014 by Taigen Leighton, Guiding Teacher at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate in Chicago. Jinryu Wachowitz studies Zen with her teacher Kyoku at Shungetsu-ji in Germany. She likes to travel and deepen her practice in other places, like recently in the USA. John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Rathalla Review. Latest books, Covert, Memory Outside The Head and Guest Of Myself are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and Open Ceilings. Ken Goodman mates ecstatic meditation & poetry creation in Cleveland, Ohio. Laura Northrup Poland is a farmer, writer, and artist in Franklin, Indiana. Her photography celebrates the splendor of Indiana's natural ecosystems. See more of her photographs at reflectedspectrum.com. Mark J. Mitchell has been practicing Zen for about thirty years. His latest collection is Something To Be: Poems On The Workday from Pski’s Porch. He sits in San Francisco where he lives with his wife, Joan Juster.

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Page 59 Muho Noelke is a German-born Zen monk who was the abbot of Antai-ji from 2002 until 2020. He has translated works of Dōgen and Kōdō Sawaki and authored books in German and Japanese. Now in Osaka, Muho leads on-line practice and teaching on YouTube. Neil Schmitzer-Torbert began to study Zen as a high school student in Illinois, and attended the Dharma Field Zen Center while he was a graduate student in neuroscience. Since 2006, he has taught in the Wabash College Psychology department in Crawfordsville, Indiana and shares essays reflecting on Zen practice and science on his site, neuralbuddhist.com. Richard Holinger’s work has appeared in Southern Review, Hobart, and Iowa Review. He has a PhD in Creative Writing from UIC and lives northwest of Chicago where fox, deer, and turkeys cross his lawn. Robert Beveridge (he/him) makes noise (xterminal.bandcamp.com) and writes poetry on unceded Mingo land (Akron, OH). Recent and upcoming appearances in Midwest Zen, egoPHobia, and FRiGG, among others. Tonia Smith-Kalouria is a retired actress and teacher living in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. Her poems are in seven anthologies and several digital magazines and blogs. Yuan Changming edits Poetry Pacific at poetrypacific.blogspot.ca. Credits include Pushcart nominations & appearance in Best Canadian Poetry, among others. Yuan was a poetry judge for Canada's 2021 National Magazine Awards. Zhihua Wang is a graduate of the Arkansas Writers' MFA Program at the University of Central Arkansas. She worked as the Managing Editor of Arkana from 2019-2020. Her recent work has appeared in Aji, Last Leaves, San Pedro River Review, Nurture, Across the Margin, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, and elsewhere. She is working on her first poetry collection and collection of translated poems. Rev. Zuiko Redding is the teacher at Cedar Rapids Zen Center in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She leads zazen, gives dharma talks, ministers to groups in the Iowa prisons and reads with her cats.

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Great Wind Zendo is a place for Zen Meditation located in Danville, Indiana. We are open to the public and there is no charge for our programs. Anyone new to meditation is welcome. We provide meditation instruction on Thursday evenings at 6:30 p.m. Please e-mail us so we know to expect you. Our schedule includes weekly meditation on Thursdays from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., morning meditation one Sunday each month from 9:00 a.m. to noon. We offer World Peace ceremonies and celebrate Nirvana Day, Buddha’s Birthday, Bodhidharma Day and Enlightenment Day. Our web calendar is the best place to find our schedule. Great Wind Zendo is a 501(c)(3) non-profit religious organization funded by the generosity of donors. Great Wind Zendo 52 W. Broadway Street Danville, Indiana 46122 email@greatwindzendo.org https://www.greatwindzendo.org

Midwest Zen Issue 4 Summer 2023

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